


Strange Messages

by robinasnyder



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen, Kid!Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2016-08-05
Packaged: 2018-07-29 14:44:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7688476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robinasnyder/pseuds/robinasnyder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leia receives a strange message that if she ever wants to see her son again she needs to show up at specific coordinates at a specific time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strange Messages

Leia got an encoded messages a week back. It was a coordinate and a date. Attached were the words: “Be here alone if you ever want to see your son again”. The strangeness of the entire thing sent the Resistance leadership into a tizzy. They didn’t want her to go. She couldn’t possibly ignore a chance to get her son back. 

The leadership tried to lock her down to the base. Poe Dameron helped her commandeer a vessel off world. He left her close enough to the location that she could get to the exact location on her own. It took her a half hour to walk to the location listed on the message. She arrived right on time. 

In a way, she really wasn’t surprised to see General Hux there waiting for her. In her own way she respected the man. In her youth she’d been a leader of a Rebellion that had been being built almost before she was born. She’d fought a war till the bitter end, and worked hard to build peace. If anything, the new war was almost a relief. At least it was familiar. She’d built the Resistance forces out for nothing, just her own charisma. 

She knew about Brendol Hux. She knew about his insane ideas and what he’d done to his students. She was looking at the fruit of that labor right in front of her. General Armitage Hux had inherited the army his father had tried to build. But the young man was the one who made it what it was. For all that his ideals were horrifying, in some way she did respect him. At least she understood him on the level of a General, even if their ideas clashed so greatly. 

“I told you to come alone,” Hux said. 

“I needed a way to get home after our meeting,” Leia said.

The other General eyed her closely. “I was told force users were excellent pilots.”

“They are if they’ve been taught how to fly,” she said. She could pilot a plane in an emergency. It was a survival skill, but few people were as skilled as Poe Dameron, except for maybe Luke and Wedge Antilles in their youth. She’d learned many other skills. She didn’t need to be an ace pilot.

Hux nodded slowly. “Alright.” 

“Why did you contact me?” she asked. It was dangerous for her, but it had to be dangerous for him as well. She could have sent other people to the meeting instead and they could have captured him. She couldn’t really sense another person around, at least not a full sized person. She slowly quirked her brow. “Who’s hiding in your shuttle?” 

“That would be the reason for the meeting,” Hux said. 

He stepped back into the shuttle. Leia braced herself for some kind of attack. Instead the other General emerged from the shuttle with a child in his arms. The child wore all black and had a hood. That was what she’d sensed, a small child. 

The child had his face pressed into Hux’s shoulder, and it was curled up tightly. Leia wondered if maybe this was Hux’s child. But she couldn’t imagine that he would turn his own child over to her and into the hands of his enemy. 

The child froze and turned around and Leia gasped. She remembered Ben being about five of six. She’d let his grow out his hair and it curled and waved all on its own. His big brown eyes were always pleading for more time with her. But it couldn’t be-

“Mommy!” the too familiar voice called. He wiggled and wriggled until Hux set him down and then he ran across the way to her and tackled her legs. She could hear and feel his tears. She slowly knelt down to closer to his height. She didn’t know if she would be strong enough to pick him up right then. 

“Ben?” She asked. She brushed back dark brown curls and the black hood. Watery brown eyes looked up at her.

“I want to go home,” Ben wailed. He wrapped his arms around her neck and hugged her tight. 

“Oh Ben,” Leia said. She felt her own eyes water. But the enemy was still close by. Instead she blinked back her tears and wrapped her arms around Ben, offering both comfort and protection. Ben folded right into her hold as if he’d never been away. 

“What happened?” she asked, looking at Hux.

Hux shrugged. The look on his face was completely inscrutable. “He was seeking from dark artifact. The Stormtroopers found him three days later. We don’t believe it’s reversible… not easily.” 

“Easily,” she echoed. 

“The Supreme Leader ordered me to bring Kylo Ren to him. He was going to experiment to see if he could be returned to what he was,” Hux said. His voice sounded hard. “But Ben kept saying he wanted to go home.” 

Leia remembered when Ben did that. He couldn’t be deterred from his goal. She knew that first would be the asking. Then came the tears, then the screaming. And after all of that maelstrom of cacophony that would be the quiet tears. Those were the worst. Ben would get so quiet. He would only ask in whispers and would withdraw. The last time she’d seen that had been before she’d sent him off for the last time to Luke. She’d seen it before when he knew she would be leaving for months. 

It was heartbreaking. But Leia always believed that what she decided was for the best, for the greater good. As hard as it was, she would always do what she believed needed to be done. She knew General Hux was every bit as fanatical in his devotion to his cause as she was to her own. And yet the quiet tears of a little boy swayed his heart. 

“Hux,” she said quietly. 

“He’d never asked for anything from me before. Only ever demanded,” Hux said, suddenly rambling. “It was such a simple thing too. Of all the most ridiculous and impossible things that he’s demanded of me before, this was the simplest… and most difficult to accomplish.” 

“What will you do now?” Leia asked. 

“Return to my post,” Hux said. He straightened up, made himself even taller than he already seemed. 

Leia straightened up, taking Ben with her and holding him against her chest. He felt so light and small. She wondered if he’d even been eating. She clung to his chest and kept his head buried. He quieted, but her shirt was very damp.

“Ben,” Leia said. “Come say good bye to then General.” 

Ben slowly turned his head from his hiding place. Leia couldn’t see the expression on Ben’s face. But she could see Hux’s. He looked softer, like he would very much like to take Ben back from her, or follow after them both. 

“Goodbye, Mr. Hux,” Ben said in that little baby voice that Leia had missed so much. She hugged him tighter. 

“Goodbye, Ben,” Hux said. “You listen to your mother, and stay away from anyone named Snoke.” 

“Okay Mr.Hux,” Ben said quietly. He pressed his face back into Leia’s shirt. 

“Goodbye, General,” Leia said. 

“Goodbye, General,” Hux said. He turned and walked back to his shuttle.

Leia turned and carried Ben back with her to Poe Dameron. Ben got heavier in her arms with every step she took, but she didn’t put him down, even when they got on the ship. Ben clung to her just as tightly. By luck, or the Force, or something, Ben was returned to her. She had a chance to do better. Just a chance. She wasn’t going to let Ben go this time.

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [AU by darthmaddiesartblog](http://darthmaddiesartblog.tumblr.com/post/139969732126/hello-i-just-followed-you-recently-and-i-love-your) and [Cute picture by Princeofredroses](http://princeofredroses.tumblr.com/post/146829146901/continue-from-last-doodle-link-lets-see-whos).


End file.
